Untold Facts

4,922 ranking of 6,000 in 2009 of the erstwhile Oxford of the East

Makka University
When Bangladesh ranked for the first time as the ‘most corrupt’ country in the world in 2000 A.D., the ranker Professor Mozaffor Ahmad had the misfortune of being rebuked fiercely by the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina not in any public meeting but in the sacred floor of the Parliament for long 27 minutes. Nobody dared to stop her then in the rebuking of the poor Professor of Dhaka University who earlier did the work through credible research for the TI or Transparency International Bangladesh chapter. I am not sure if there is some one, may be, the Education Minster of Hasina’s cabinet who would rise now to make any protest against the pitiable position of the Dhaka University that figured 4,922 among 6,000 in quality ranking. No, the poor Education Minister is just about 100 days in position and he should not be held anyway responsible for the poor performance ranking; nevertheless, he should have some thing to say in the matter of the university, the erstwhile ‘Oxford of the East’ also ridiculed then though as the Makkah University for being in a way ‘Islamic’ by the then Calcutta based elites, in particular.

Laments
In the mornings of the 19th and 20th April, I listened to in one audio media of two senior professors of the same university who made comments on the issue. One said very briefly that it was a pity. The other emphatically stated that there are now some professors in the university who would not normally qualify even to become a lecturer! Is that so? I heard earlier elsewhere of the same Professor, as well, making the same odd remark with the same force of his conviction.

Initial 49 years
It is now 88 years ago that the University of Dhaka was established by the then British Government not all on their own but in response to demand of the of the backward people of the then East Bengal whose majority had been the Muslims, and for that reason the Kolkata based advanced elite of the Hindu community seriously opposed the founding of the Dhaka University. Dr.Rashbihari Ghosh led petitions in a number of occasions to the Governor General of British India against founding a university in Dhaka. They had some reasons to do so. That East Bengal had been the agricultural hinterland of West Bengal for raw materials, jute, in particular, feeding raw materials to the Industries there mainly concentrated around the then capital city of Calcutta (now Kolkata). However, in response to the concerted demand by the Muslim League leaders the Government made a sort of compensation for the earlier annulment of the province of East Bengal and Assam and reintegration of the new province once again to West Bengal in December 1911, provided a ‘consolation prize’, and that was Dhaka university established in 1921 having had obtained huge donation of land by the then Nawab Salimullah of Dhaka. It was initially meant for residential teaching institution and further that it planned for learning of the traditional Arabic, Urdu and Persian languages the Muslims proudly inherited since the earlier days of Islam and Muslim rules of about a millennium in the Indian subcontinent.

Quality stayed high until late 1960s
No matter whatever sort of ridicule the university faced in the beginning it started with the model of the Christian Ox-Bridge and away from secular London University and so maintained consistently the standard. Despite the fact that the late 1940s had some jerk for the independence movement from the British, standard continued to stay up until late1960s. The 1971 war, however, made the difference. The fault was not the war itself but the way things went wrong afterwards.

The GONOTOKATUKI
The condensed syllabus introduced in 1972 and the GONOTOKATUKI or mass incriminating copying in even public examinations that both had been permitted as ‘booty’ for the learners’ participation in the 1971 war started to play havoc immediately afterwards so far as quality of achievements and so also Degree/Diploma obtained were concerned. Despite the fact that many honest teachers had rightly diagnosed the vicious ailments, authorities failed to ensure restoration of quality and standard of curricula offerings. The internal weaknesses and failures continued years after years. Foreign institutions of higher learning warned Bangladesh for the failures to maintain quality by denying recognition and admission of Bangladeshi graduates who earlier had almost open door policy in their institutions.

BUET & Dhaka Medical College improved
Later on after some years, BUET and Dhaka Medical graduates having had improved their quality started to get acceptability in advanced foreign institutions. But graduates of many other institutions did not mark well and failed to get acceptance. These facts should have been eye openers. But factors like over politicization both of the students and of the teachers blocked the way for better quality. Thus it is lately only a matter of blame game, as I see from outside as a curious onlooker and a retired teacher.

Preconditions for quality learning
Quality learning is a multi-way exercise. Though the main players are the teachers and the students, the overall institutional infrastructure, management, administration and above all devotion to teaching and learning remains one’s own matter of commitment and efforts put in as other crucial points.

Potentials not nurtured fully
The main items of learning aims are for acquisition of knowledge, values and skills. At the university level, student centered learning can give better attainments that are related to one’s seriousness and hard work. It is very much true that the intakes are of high quality for learning as the Dhaka University takes the best-graded students from the HSC passed levels. Such high quality intakes are supposed to have high potentials for quality learning and of graduate outputs. How is that they fail in high quality? That means the potentials have not been nourished and nurtured in full. Distractions made the quality low.

Distractions and erosion of moral values
Distractions are many and varied for students to concentrate their whole time and full energy. But what distraction has been prominent and crucial against motivation for seriousness in learning, to me, was the erosion of moral values among the high ups and its trickle down effect to younger people that played some part in putting hindrance to blooming of full potential of the learners, as well. For many teachers also this has been the obstructing issue. Secularization of education curricula at the higher level and also of the society involving the highly educated lot added fuel to fire of moral erosion. Outside distractions, particularly, from the vested interests of political muscles added further to encourage terrorism, on the one side, and fall in standards of quality learning of the students, on the other. The top leaders in politics who matter most are hardly anybody of high merit and so they signaled little to their cadres for learning quality.

Research!
I am not sure on what specific criteria the relevant ranking had been made, but research should be an important element in university academic works. On this score funding is a matter of crucial need, but again, as I see, dedication underpinned by high moral standard is a basic requirement of the researchers. On this score as well, I am afraid, very few ‘qualified’ researchers have made their mark as we knew earlier that research funds had been misused by many scholars at the Dhaka University.

Erosion of moral values and falls in quality
Past history of the University had been brilliant so far as quality was concerned. Unfortunately the fall and erosion of moral values made the mark in post 1971 Bangladesh. It, therefore, needs serious soul searching for finding satisfactory remedy of the poor quality ranking not only of the Dhaka University but also of all institutions, particularly of higher learning, not to say anything though here that Bangladesh’s primary and secondary schools are of worth in quality of learning.

Author: M.T. Hussain